


Tit for Tat

by osprey_archer



Series: Reciprocity [27]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Past Rape/Non-con
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-17
Updated: 2015-07-17
Packaged: 2018-04-09 20:06:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4362428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/osprey_archer/pseuds/osprey_archer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sex can be a bit of a minefield. But they're getting pretty good at talking their way through it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tit for Tat

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [littlerhymes](http://archiveofourown.org/users/littlerhymes/pseuds/littlerhymes) for betaing this!
> 
> See the end of the work for more content notes.

“You should grow your hair out,” Bucky murmured sleepily. He was stroking his fingers through Steve’s hair, soothing, hypnotic. Steve’s cheek rested against Bucky’s bare stomach. One of the buttons on Bucky’s unbuttoned shirt dug into Steve’s ear. In between Bucky’s petting hand and the rise and fall of his breath and the sound of the waves outside, Steve felt like he was floating. “Like you had it during the war.”

“You liked that, huh?” Steve turned his face into Bucky’s hand, hopeful, and Bucky obligingly stroked his cheek. 

“Aw, it looked okay,” Bucky said carelessly. He moved his hand up in Steve’s hair again, scratching his scalp, rubbing him behind the ears, and then let his hand drift down Steve’s neck, over his bare back. He rubbed his palm along Steve’s left shoulder blade, feeling the muscles in his side. “Beautiful,” he mumbled. 

Steve nuzzled his face against Bucky’s stomach to hide his blush. Bucky didn’t give compliments easily, and Steve still wasn’t used to it. 

Bucky’s breath hitched. He shifted underneath Steve, and Steve smiled and moved his face so Bucky could feel that smile against his skin, just to the left of his belly button. He flicked out his tongue and licked Bucky’s stomach, tasting a little salt, a hint of bitterness. Bucky had tidied himself up after coming, but there were still traces left on his skin, and Steve sucked them away. 

Bucky shoved the side of his head, very gently, not hard enough to push him away. “You’re gonna get me going again,” Bucky complained.

“That a problem?” Steve’s heart beat quickly, and he was flying on it, pleasure and excitement so strong that he felt almost drunk. 

Bucky laughed, a little giddy. “I dunno. You gonna take care of it?” 

“Sure,” said Steve. He scooted forward a little, sucking just below Bucky’s belly button, letting his upper lip catch on the rim. Bucky squirmed and laughed and rubbed at the back of Steve’s neck. Steve darted his tongue into Bucky’s belly button. Bucky moaned softly, so sweet and needy it went to Steve’s head like a shot of whiskey; and, dizzy with it, Steve asked, “Want me to suck your cock?” 

Bucky’s body went rigid, all sharp angles, and he shoved Steve away for real. “No,” he snapped. 

It was as if Steve had chucked a bucket of water over them both. “Oh,” said Steve. He scooted farther. Bucky was lying on the center of the mattress, so he couldn’t get very far. He wanted to be on the opposite side of the world. “Okay,” he said. He felt miserably exposed, naked except for his boxer shorts, and he fumbled on the floor for his discarded t-shirt and pulled it back on. It didn’t help. “I thought – you let that guy in the alley – sorry.”

“No,” said Bucky. He sounded almost as anxious as Steve felt, and he was sitting up, arms crossed over his chest, holding his unbuttoned shirt closed. “No, you don’t have to apologize. It’s just that’s different, see, some guy in an alley. I’m never going to see him again, he’s not going to expect I’m going to suck his cock in return.” 

“You wouldn’t have to – ”

“But that wouldn’t be fair,” Bucky interrupted. “I want to be fair to you this time, Steve, I want to treat you right, and you wouldn’t want me to suck your cock anyway, I’m no good at it, I’m awful at it, actually, I couldn’t even get him off.” 

“Oh,” said Steve, startled. “Oh. Okay.” 

The silence was painful. The only light came in through the windows, behind Bucky’s head, so Steve couldn’t see his face, just the dark shape of his body with the head slightly bowed.

“You wanna hear the story?” Bucky asked suddenly. He pressed his hand over his mouth. “It’s kind of dull,” he muttered, words muffled by his fingers.

Steve didn’t want to. He felt almost sick with dread. “Do you want to tell it?” he asked, hedging. 

“Damn it!” Bucky burst out. He bounced down to the foot of the bed, to the corner farthest away from Steve. He crouched there, catlike, and Steve was intensely aware of the darkness and the soft sound in the quiet: the soft whoosh of the waves outside, the sound of frogs in the night.

“You don’t have to tell me anything,” said Steve. The wave of dread had passed, and he was calm now. “But I’m listening if you want to.”

Silence. The frogs croaked. Steve could hear a truck passing on the highway, far off.

Abruptly Bucky said, “Sasha used to call me by pet names all the time. Sweetheart. Honey. Pet.”

Pierce. It wasn’t a surprise, exactly, but it still hit Steve in the gut. 

“I knew men don’t usually talk to each other like that. So – ” Bucky stopped, swallowed. His face took on an oddly aggressive smile, like he was daring Steve to be shocked. “I asked if we had been lovers. Before I got brain damaged. And he said, ‘I wouldn’t call us lovers. It was always purely physical between us.’”

Steve flinched. Bucky’s nasty little smile got nastier. He couldn’t sit still; the fidgets were almost invisible, but Steve could feel the mattress trembling with his movements. “And he suggested it might jog my memory if we gave it a try again. So – ” He propelled himself off the bed, bouncing across the room to stand by the window overlooking the beach. “I sucked at it,” he said, and then started to giggle at the pun. “I kept gagging on it. Which must have been pretty funny – ”

“Bucky,” Steve said softly. 

Bucky seemed to sag. He propped himself against the windowsill, as if he might fall without something to hold him up. “Pierce didn’t think it was funny either,” he said. 

Steve moved cautiously to stand by the windowsill with Bucky: close enough that Bucky could touch him if he wanted, but not so close that Bucky would feel crowded. Bucky dropped his forehead against the window screen. 

“That was a nasty trick for him to play on you,” Steve said. 

“It wasn’t a trick,” Bucky said. He sounded tired. “It was true. He came to the Soviet Union once with Zola and blew me in the woods out behind the dacha. So I owed him.”

Steve leaned against the windowsill. “I don’t think it works that way,” he said. 

“No?” Bucky’s tone was scathing. “You quit giving me hand jobs ‘cause I never paid you back.” 

“Okay,” Steve said. “Yes. There needs to be a balance in a relationship. But it’s not a simple tit-for-tat. And no one ever owes it to anyone else to do something if they don’t want to.”

Bucky didn’t reply. He had his right hand over his mouth again, his left crossed protectively over his body. His hair was falling in his face. 

“I won’t – okay, I can’t promise I won’t ever ask you to do anything that makes you uncomfortable, because I won’t always know beforehand,” Steve said. “But I’m not going to demand that you keep going if something hurts you or if you just don’t like it.” 

Bucky tightened his left arm. Most of his face had disappeared behind his hair.

“Buck? Can I hug you?” 

Bucky still didn’t speak, but he scooted closer to Steve. Steve put his arms around him, and Bucky shuddered and quite suddenly began to cry. “Fuck, fuck, _fuck_ ,” he gasped, and kicked the baseboard. “God _damn_. All I ever do is cry.” 

“I think that’s an exaggeration,” Steve said.

Bucky didn’t reply. He shoved his face in Steve’s shoulder and cried a little more, and Steve held him tightly, his hands firm against Bucky’s back. Bucky didn’t like to be stroked when he was upset. Just one more sensation to keep track of. 

Bucky did cry far more often than he used to, but he calmed down more quickly, too; and presently he relaxed, turning his face away from Steve’s shoulder so his hair brushed against Steve’s neck. Steve squeezed a little tighter and kissed Bucky’s hair, and when Bucky wriggled, Steve let go. 

Bucky stepped away and tidied up his face with his sleeve. “Actually,” said Bucky, his voice sprightly, “he sucked cock like a champion. Whereas I got snot all over his fancy suit, and in the end he gave up and told me to finish it up with my hands. So really, I kind of won.”

“Whatever you say, Buck,” Steve said. 

Bucky gave him a sideways smile. 

A breeze rustled through the trees. The waves continued to rush on the shore, soft and quiet in the night. 

“And I was thinking,” Steve said. “Not for tonight.” Steve didn’t think he was up to having sex that night. Mostly he wanted to hold Bucky for the next six hours. “But for the future. Would it be okay if I offered blow jobs – you could always say no if you wanted – but I offered, and you wouldn’t ask for them if I didn’t. And then you wouldn’t have to worry that I would ask you, because you wouldn’t be asking me.”

Bucky’s face took on a soft look. It hurt Steve in a funny sort of way. “Okay,” Bucky said softly.

“Okay,” Steve agreed. 

“Okay,” Bucky said again, and he punched Steve’s shoulder. He was grinning now, the mischievous grin Steve had loved since they were kids. “I want to go swimming,” Bucky said. 

“Now?” 

“Yeah.” Bucky was moving toward the door already; he flicked the latch open and didn’t even bother with the back stairs, just jumped down them and ran down the slender sandy path through the tall grass toward the beach. The white sand gleamed in the moonlight. 

Steve could have caught up with him. The heavy metal arm slowed Bucky down, so Steve was always faster. But Steve loped along behind him, and followed Bucky fully-clothed into the sea. 

Bucky rose out of the water with a fountain of spray, and slapped his arm across the water to splash a sheet of water into Steve’s face. “Hey!” Steve spluttered, and splashed him back, and they splashed back and forth until Bucky chased Steve back on the beach. 

They both flopped on the still-warm sand, sopping wet and laughing in the moonlight. Bucky flung out his arms and legs, as if he meant to make an angel in the sand. Steve stretched out too, arms above his head, and took a deep breath to smell the heavy salt sea and the scent of the sand. His wet clothes felt cold in the breeze. 

Bucky threw a handful of sand at him. Steve turned his head to look at him, then rolled over so they were lying right next to each other, Bucky on his back and Steve on his stomach beside him. “What?” Steve asked, propping himself on his elbow so he could look down at Bucky. “Am I not giving you enough attention?” 

Bucky reached up and wrapped his arm loosely around Steve’s head, pulling him in the way he did when he wanted to be kissed. But he hung back a little, turned his head away, and Steve thought, _He wants to know if I still want to kiss him_. 

So Steve kissed him, quick and light: the corner of his mouth first, and when Bucky turned his head toward Steve again, full on the lips. Steve nudged Bucky’s lips gently with his tongue, tasting salt, a little sand; feeling along the seam of his lips till Bucky opened his mouth, kissed back, his hand tight enough in Steve’s hair that it hurt. 

Steve’s wet clothes clung to him, clammy and cool. He snuggled against Bucky, and Bucky sighed and stretched and relaxed, and they lay like that for a while, kissing quietly. Bucky must have been comfortable, sandwiched between the warm sand and Steve, but the breeze off the sea chilled Steve’s back. 

Eventually Steve shivered and sat up and shook himself like a wet dog. Bucky sat too, more slowly, and lifted a hand to hide a yawn. “God, I’m so fucking thirsty,” Bucky said, and Steve laughed and smacked his shoulder. 

“I think we’ve got some orange juice left.” 

Bucky hauled himself to his feet, brushing futilely at the sand sticking to his clothes. He grabbed Steve’s hand to pull him up too. “I love orange juice,” he said. He smiled, lop-sided. “I’ll make pancakes,” he said. “We’ll have a midnight snack.”

**Author's Note:**

> This story contains Bucky's non-graphic description of the time Alexander Pierce maneuvered the asset into giving him a fairly unsuccessful blow job. 
> 
> (And if anyone wants to read about the time Pierce went to the Soviet Union and blew the Soldier in the woods out behind the dacha, that story is [Apprentice Devils](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3684102).)


End file.
